


a beautiful start

by Merefish



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Candlenights, F/F, Kinda, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-28
Updated: 2018-12-28
Packaged: 2019-09-29 00:43:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 962
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17193269
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Merefish/pseuds/Merefish
Summary: How did Sloane and Hurley end up meeting?A Candlenights themed story for a secret santa, but I thought y'all might appreciate it





	a beautiful start

Sloane wasn’t really a holiday person, but her favorite memory occurred on a Candlenights a few years previously. And no matter how much Hurley called her a sap for it, she loved to tell the story to all their friends every Candlenights as they gathered around the bush.

 

Sloane had only been part of this particular group of thieves for a month or so, but she had been bouncing from town to town, group to group, since she finally ran away from the orphanage. She never quite fit in with any of the groups she was with, but they were better than the orphanage, and definitely better than working alone. Everyone knew that working without backup got you killed, or worse, caught.

“ _Raven, guards!_ ”

Sloane swore under her breath at the call in Thieves' Cant. If they trusted her as much as she trusted them, they would be long gone by the time the militia got close enough to see them. She looked out the small window, and saw her so-called backup running as fast as they could away from the house. The house where she could see members of the militia beginning to converge. There were only a few exits from the house, and without any backup Sloane had no idea which ones were safe. She reached the top of the staircase, only to hear the militia already inside downstairs. She whirled around and around and desperately looked for an exit she had overlooked. In the corner, she barely noticed an old ladder leading to an attic door. She clambered up the ladder, hoping none of the militia members had darkvision.

As she crouched behind chests and crates, looking for the window she had seen from outside, Sloane heard the voice of a member of the militia getting closer and closer to the door to the attic. Just as she was easing open the window, a halfling woman burst through the attic door. Sloane froze in the window and, surprisingly, the woman did too.

“You,” she gasped. Sloane managed to unfreeze at that and threw the window open before she could unfreeze.

“Don’t follow me, I don’t want to have to hurt you,” Sloane hissed before leaping out the window and using her last spell slot to glide to the ground.

 

A few weeks later Sloane was in a worse spot that she thought was possible. After leaving the last group, she was unable to find anyone else she could trust to watch her back. However, her funds were low, and she needed just a little more than she could get picking pockets from the people going to and fro in the city center. So she did her research and found a corrupt banker who was conveniently going to be out of town for several weeks for Candlenights. She got in, was grabbing what she could, when she tripped an unexpected trap. So now she was stuck, waiting for the militia to appear and cart her away.

Sloane heard a door thudding, and she groaned, knowing that the militia had arrived. To her surprise, instead of the big hulking group of militia members she had imagined it was just one member. As she got closer, she realized it was the halfling woman from the other day. The _cute_ halfling woman from the other day. When Sloane thought back on this day, she cursed how much of a useless lesbian she was around any sort of competent woman.

“Hey,” Sloane said, and instantly regretted it. She was obviously a thief and caught red-handed and all she could say was _hey_??? “I didn’t expect to see you again.”

“I think that’s a little obvious,” she said, trying and failing not to laugh. “I guess this wasn’t the night you expected for Candlenights.”

“No shit, this isn’t what I expected,” Sloane sassed, before remembering she was speaking to the militia member who would be deciding her fate. “Sorry officer.”

“Call me Hurley,” she, said and Sloane died a little. She was cute and sharing her name. Maybe this wouldn’t be the worst possible ending to the night that she had been picturing. Hurley made her way across the room and started unraveling the trap that Sloane was stuck in

“So Hurley how’d you end up stuck with the Candlenights shift?” Sloane asked after a few moments of awkward silence. There was another pause and Hurley blushed before saying “I let you get away.”

“Wait you let me get away?” Sloane blurt out. “Why would you do that? What would you get out of that?”

“Well you only were stealing from criminals, so I couldn’t really be that mad at you. And anyways, you gave us an excuse to go into a lot of houses that we couldn’t get warrants for,” Hurley admitted, somewhat nervously.

“So are you going to cart me down to the station now?” Sloane asked, hesitantly.

“Well, actually, I was hoping that we could have a deal. You break into a few houses that we need some evidence from and I can say that whoever tripped this trap managed to get out before I arrived.” Sloane stared at Hurley, shocked.

“That…that sounds okay to me,” she forced out, not sure which deity she should be thanking for this. Hurley finally managed to get her unstuck and reached out her hand. Sloane grabbed it and slowly got to her feet.

“I feel like this is the beginning of a beautiful partnership,” Hurley said with a brilliant smile, and Sloane knew at that moment she would do anything to keep that smile on her face.

 

Back around the bush, Hurley would usually push Sloane and laugh, big and beautiful. And Sloane would just smile and whisper into Hurley’s ear “there’s that smile."


End file.
